Regular readers of this motherfucker know that I love food more than I love toys. Living in the cultural trail mix that is Toronto has exposed me to every type of cuisine out there and most local restaurant owners know me personally as “the guy who only orders one drink”. Using my vast knowledge of food and restaurants, I’ve come up with very good sandwich board quotes for various types of eateries that are free for anyone to use. I’ve learned that nothing puts meat in the seats quite like a cleverly-worded street ad.

Next week kids of all heights and weights will go back to school to learn about things we adults don’t care about. But today’s schools are vastly different than the ones we used to dream about sex in, and the kids have changed too. Back in my day we’d jump to class and instead of computers we had smart kids chained to the back wall. What else is different? Let’s find out:

Did kids still get in trouble for chewing gum?

The roots of chewing gum in class go way back to the origins of gum itself.

Aristocrats loved getting seated beside the windows of posh restaurants to show the hungry poor how well-fed they were. It got so popular that the wealthy yearned for a more portable way to display their ability to eat food any time they wanted. Chewing gum was designed as a way for the rich to appear to be eating while on the go and it caught on quickly, but thanks to gum’s low prices, fake eating became a trend that everyone could enjoy. It was especially prevalent in schools and soon every child was chewing, causing teachers to burn school lunches and eventually the banishment of gum once they figured out what was happening.

Even after gum went from being a tool for pretend eating to a pleasurable mouth exercise, schools continued to enforce the century-old rule. Surprisingly, gum is quite popular in today’s schools but rather than chew with their mouths, students chew with their noses for easy concealment and fresher snorts for when they sniff screw after school. Sniff screwing has essentially replaced the more pedestrian blow job and will likely inspire the next generation of pornography.

What happened to Coles/Cliffs Notes?

We’ve all ‘cheated’ on a test, book report or salad contest by using abridged versions of course material called Coles Notes here in Canada and Cliffs notes in the United Stains. You’d be naive to think that modern children don’t use shortcuts to get their homework done, they just do so in a different way.

In modern schools students are surrounded by technological devices, providing ample nooks and crannies in which to hide tiny scrolls called “wee cheaties”. Teachers have a very hard time controlling the flow of wee cheaties within school walls because of the sheer number of them.

What about bullies?

Today’s culture doesn’t reward bullies like our generation did but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist–at least in the physical world. During the school day all identified bullies are strapped into rigs that take them into a massive simulation where their avatars are free to roam. They are able to live their fantasies of killing teachers and pissing on nerds so that by the end of the day they can return to a normal home life.

Do they still have to ask before going to the bathroom?

Everyone remembers the embarrassment of having to ask a teacher to use to the bathroom. Today’s schools have replaced bathrooms with “Creative Co-Habitats”, which are essentially white-walled rooms filled with bean bag chairs and Plasticine. Students are free to enter the habitat whenever they please and are encouraged to explore their bowel movements and innovate new ways to dispose of human waste while collaborating with their peers.

Do teachers still get apples from students?

No, they get frozen honey instead.

What happened to blackboards?

Blackboards gave way to whiteboards which have been replaced by advanced LED displays linked to an intricate network of schools around the globe. The display aggregates lessons worldwide ensuring that the pepperoni dancer’s son in Italy is getting the same education as the blacksmith’s bastard daughter in Tokyo.

This way, every idiot of the future will be very easy to control and manipulate because we’ll know exactly what’s in those shriveled little fuckin’ peanut brains of theirs. Today’s random assortment of morons is very difficult to control because we cannot predict their actions, which has led to crime, teenage pregnancies, Amy Adams movies and the Washington Redskins.

After my old hockey coach died while immersed in virtual reality, he left each of his favourite players something in his will. I received the rights to the story of Hat Man V. Rat Man, which he had purchased in 1989 at an auction famous for selling the original recipe for Duct Tape.

With the rights set to expire on Halloween of this October, I decided I’d better do something with the story and since my screenplay hasn’t been laminated yet I can’t legally produce a film. Here’s a brief telling of the tale that will hopefully go viral enough for me to make t-shirts.

Hat Man V. Rat Man

The graffiti wars of the 1980s were well-documented but specifics are scant due to the artists’ unwritten rule that “Players aren’t Sprayers (we are sprayers in that we spray paint but we don’t talk about spraying (paint))”. Upon further research we learned that the rules were in fact written on the side of a low wall in Central Park:

These famous lines were painted by a Bronx-born, sewer-educated street artist named Lance “Hat Man” Thipthin. In 1987 it’d be hard to find a wall without his signature tag splotched on it like Peter Criss’ autograph on the thick thigh of a Kentucky housewife:

For about a year, Hat Man was New York’s reigning king of spray paint spray painting until one unusually lukewarm July lunch hour when he spotted a tag near one of his own:

Some say Kavid “Rat Man” Hice gained his artistic wizardry after being bitten by a radioactive Chinese man who bred Gremlins in the back of his junk store. In reality, the Newark-native learned his trade while visiting Manhattan on weekends to visit a friendly police dog famous for sniffing out true talent and people who love to stab things.

As he walked the streets he took in the art that had exploded all over the big city streets. He would practice back home in Jersey using nothing more than a can of whipped cream and a piece of cardboard that his father ate because he thought it was a cake. Eventually, Rat Man brought his New Jersey street style to the New York streets whose street style was the style of the street, and the Rat was loose.

The pair actually painted the same walls for several years but never noticed each other’s tags due to each man’s stubbornness when it came to perspective.

“I only painted vertical walls and I never looked up because around here, on my streets, looking up leaves you open to someone pulling down your fly and filling it with with chocolate eggs. You get Easter’d in my neighbourhood you never get respected again,” said Hat Man in a rare interview.

Rat Man had a very different attitude:

“I decided to paint up high because in New Jersey you gotta keep your eyes to the skies unless you want them seagulls gaining a strategic advantage over you,” explained Rat Man in a New Jersey tourism guide from 1991.

Another problem was how similar some of their tags looked while in close proximity to each other. Outsiders who weren’t from the Bronx OR New Jersey and who weren’t afraid to enjoy a full view of the world were confused by the apparent redundancy in the pair’s work.

Once Hat Man saw what was going on that fateful July day, he knew he had to take action.

“I saw his shit when I accidentally looked up to check out a cloud that some guy said looked like a laundry machine. I was shocked and looked up at some more of my famous spots to find RAT MAN all over my territory. I switched my name to ‘Rat Man’ to show him what was up but he saw mine and did the same thing so for a couple weeks ‘Hat Man’ was ‘Rat Man’ and ‘Rat Man’ was ‘Hat Man’, which really pissed off Cat Man who got that man (Hat Man, formerly Rat Man) and me together for a truce,” Hat Man mentioned in a foreword to a cookbook penned by Cat Man, a respected graffiti elder in NYC.

The trio met in an alleyway where Cat Man had set up a complex system of mirrors so that both men could look each other in the eye without having to adjust their preferred perspective. There was some confusion over nods and head-shakes but eventually the two masterminds realized they were cousins and had played together as children.*

*In my script they try to kill each other then you learn that the narrator of the story is their mutual uncle named Fat Man, but it got too confusing.

Only known picture of Hat Man and Rat Man together

And that’s the story of one of the great rivalries in graffiti history, which might be more well-known were it not for the story of CHUBBSTER V. NIMBST!, a tale that was loosely adapted into Jingle All The Way starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad as two feuding fathers.

Oh wait, sorry, my hockey coach is alive and well. Turns out we were both in the VR chamber and this whole story rights will thing was part of a new simulation. Phew. Too scary for me though, I think I’ll go back to an old favourite.

I had the honour of being on my pal Chris Locke‘s excellent podcast, Utopia To Me! Listen as Chris and I build my ideal world run by a wise older brother and full of vehicles and Clearly Canadian drinks. Grab it on iTunes or Stitcher if you know how to use those things.

Traveling can be a stressful experience, especially for those of us who are scared of everything. A smart traveler should eliminate as many controllable stresses as possible to leave their brain open to handle the unexpected, like having to sit beside a guy covered in moss.

In my experience, packing is one such stress that is easily combated. Here are three tried and true travel tips for travel trips that’ll nip stress in the hip.

Tip 1: Denim Blend

Everybody loves denim because it looks good, tastes good and is good. Unfortunately it’s the heaviest fabric in North America so packing a couple pairs of your favourite blues can lead to a lame load. Here’s a simple way to take your jeans with you without all the heavy lifting:

Step 1: Add your denim to a blender or food processor with a splash of coconut milk and a pinch of cardamom. Place in resealable bottle or container.

Step 5: Bake mould at 350 degrees for one hour or until jeans are golden blue.

Step 6: Remove from mould and try them on!

Tip 2: Towel Roll

You’re not always going to stay at a proper hotel when traveling so sometimes you’ll have to pack your own towels. Hear’s a surefire method to keep your towel load light and lovable:

Step 1: Roll your towels as tightly as possible.

Step 2: Prior to leaving for the airport, bus hut or train barn, smoke your towels right down to the nub.

Step 3: Upon arrival, seek the local shaman and request a smokening. The standard rate for such a ceremony is usually around seven euro. The shaman will extract the spirit of your towels from your lungs and force it to orbit around you until needed.

Step 4: Shower, swim, dip, soak, sweat–go ahead, live the wet life. Once sopping, the spirit of your towel should dry your body so long as the shaman successfully bound it to your essence.

Tip 3: Diapers

Author Douglas Adams famously declared the aforementioned towel as the most important travel accessory in his masterwork, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. While I don’t disagree on the merits of a towel, the fact remains that they are a nuisance to pack. If you’re only going to pack one item on your next vacation, choose diapers instead.

Diapers can act as a bathing suit, underpants, a towel, a beach hat, a weapon against local crooks provided you fill it with poo first, knee pads, a bandage, shoes, socks, a rat trap and a reasonable canvas for autographs in case you run into any celebs during your trip.

An insightful traveler tries his hand at winemaking in the Bordeaux region of France.

Got any travel tips? Let me know in the comments and maybe I’ll steal your user name for use on my next child!

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Reader Jake Zex’s embarrassing celebrity encounter is a bit longer than the usual “Ricki Lake barfed pickles at my church” type stories we feature, but it’s a good one regardless. Enjoy!

My friend Jordem and I were at Goo Zoo in Chicago’s Wheat Sacking District, shooting the shit and discussing how expensive Goo Zoo’s signature shot, “the shit” is. My buddy kept nodding toward the Growing Pains pinball machine and muttering something about a guy who was “so plain”. I’m not one to to avert my gaze only to check out plains — I’m all about crazies, hair faces, nub noses and tit monsters so I ignored him.

At that point I was cross-eyed and drooling off several shots of shit, so my poisoned mind decided to reveal a big secret to Jordem, a secret I won’t fully reveal here but lets just say it involves a pumpkin-spiced bra. The bar was really loud at this point as DJ Cream Pie had started his set, but Jordem appeared to understand the gist of the secret so I wrapped it up with an obligatory, “keep it on the DL”. He looked at me funny, glanced back toward the pinball machine then back to me and said “for real?”. I patted him on the back and told him not to quit his day job because I thought he was joking and the only people who joke are professional comedians who don’t need to work during the day because they work mostly at night in clubs. I then headed to the bathroom, danced all night with a Marine and his sister to Cream Pie’s Uptown Mega Mix and didn’t see Jord again until after the bar closed.

We ran into each other outside as Goo Zoo’s patrons were slowly filing onto the waiting barges. Jordem was drunker than King Henry after Merlin invented rum so I was scared that he had taken my advice seriously, quit his day job and celebrated by wasting all his remaining cash on spirits and olives. After asking how he afforded to get so drunk he gave me a strange look and told me that they were “on the DL”. I assumed he meant he was using my secret as currency and while I trade secrets for drinks and hats regularly, I do not trade those of my best friends, so I got mad and accused him of selling me out. At that moment, D.L. Hughley walked past wearing his signature “Brown Betty” leather jacket and Jordem asked me how I knew him and why I didn’t greet him with my usual cheek pinch and mint offering. I told him how despite my respect for the man’s career, I am not acquainted with D.L. Hughley in any way, shape or co-ed recreational sports team. Jordem responded with, “then why did you have me charge my drinks to him?”.

Game changer.

My mind did one of those rewind things where I started to piece everything together and as a bonus I finally remembered the code to open my fridge, which I have no problem admitting was simply “ROT”. Apparently, Jordem had referred to D.L. earlier in the evening as “the Soul Plane guy” standing next to the pinball machine, which I didn’t figure out probably because of my policy on not checking out plains. Then, by revealing my secret I had inadvertently told Jord to keep drinks on the popular star in a classic case of misunderstanding.

I ran to D.L. and explained the whole scenario which he found hilarious while also revealing that Jordem had only bought one drink and some pretzel lasagna sliders which he was more than happy to take care of. I asked Jordem how he managed to get so plastered if D.L. only bought him one and he revealed that he was faking it because he hadn’t lied in awhile.